


Differential

by midnight_neverland



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: College!AU, Drunk Hook-Up, F/M, mildly sexual content, slowly escalating towards a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 16:16:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9393242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnight_neverland/pseuds/midnight_neverland
Summary: In her last year of college, Max runs into Warren again at a party. Alcohol and loneliness, she thinks, are a dangerous combination. There’s something about the what ifs that make her want to snatch the closest possibility at hand. She thinks back to all the awkward dates she'd had in high school—a grand total of three. Suddenly, she feels eighteen again, clumsy in words and her body as she’d tried to slip inside before her date could decide whether to kiss her.None of them had been Chloe.College!AU post game where Max and Warren hook up at a party and face the awkwardness after. Based on a tumblr prompt.





	

The first time Max first sees him is at a party. The room is crowded and there are plastic lights haphazardly taped on the wall. As he ducks under them, they cast spots of light like glitter across his face. The way his eyes slide past her makes her realize how easily the years have fallen between them. For the past four years, she's somehow managed to avoid him, which isn't hard to do, seeing as they're completely different majors. 

She doesn't exactly think she's changed much. She's grown her hair to her shoulders. Her roommate, Laura, had pushed her into the black dress she's wearing. She feels like a can of peaches packed too tightly. But it's enough to slip through the crowd unnoticed—another face, another black dress, another drink in another hand. 

For a moment, she doesn’t think it's him, after all. He's grown out his hair, as well—it's shaggier—and there's stubble on his chin she didn't think he could grow. But when he laughs at something the guy beside him says, it clicks together like the last puzzle piece. 

The girl beside her hints at small talk. Max smiles, just for the reflex. She vaguely recalls her from another event Laura had made her crash. Toothy, laughs a lot. She’s laughing now and Max just nods, smile frozen on her face. She still can’t recall her name. She hadn't drunk the last time, but the night had blurred before her anyway. Too many people, too much noise. Parties had never been her thing. 

But Friday nights are just as loud in her dorm as they are here. The only difference is that she can never block the noise from the other side of her door. She might as well throw herself into the chaos. 

She always regrets it. 

She excuses herself and walks past him at the drink table, determined on finishing whatever concoction Laura had put in her cup. It tastes like rubbing alcohol and bananas and what will probably end up in the toilet bowl at the end of the night. 

She doesn't make it past three full sips before he bumps into her. 

“I'm sorry,” he says, red-faced. He grabs a handful of napkins from the table behind him and throws them in her direction. His eyes focus on the spill across her chest before meeting her eyes. “Max?” His face darkens even more as he winces. He tries to cover it up with a laugh and reaches for more napkins. When she takes them, he forgets to let go. 

“Hey, Warren,” she greets. This time it's her voice that feels squeezed too tightly. “Funny seeing you here.” 

His smile freezes, as if he's trying to pair the girl she was then with the one standing here now, and he shakes his head in disbelief. “Can I get you another drink?” 

She had thought about leaving. She had thought about retreating to her dorm. To catch up on homework under the protection of her headphones. She thinks this is her cue, the right moment to slip out. Any moment, Laura will howl that the cure for Friday night boredom is getting drunk and laid. 

But Max doesn't leave, not until the last of the conscious crowd disappears with the headlights of a cab. She and Warren are sprawled onto the grass outside, slightly tipsy and fully into debate over whether _The Handmaiden's Tale_ could be considered a successful dystopian sci-fi novel. 

“It's not sci-fi, I'm telling you. It's just speculative fiction. Frankly, it's all bullshit,” Warren says, smacking her leg. It reminds her of old times, before she had turned him down, before he had backed away. For a moment, she forgets where exactly she is. 

“Oh, you did not just call Margaret Atwood bullshit,” Max argues. She stifles a yawn. 

“That’s not what I said,” Warren scoffs. “I mean the particularities are bullshit. It's not sci-fi because where's the technology? Where's the advancement? Everything is routed in pure speculation.” He eyes the abandoned yard around them. He seems surprised that they're the only ones left, save for whoever has crashed inside. When he checks the time on his phone, he winces. “You want me to walk you to your dorm?” 

She doesn't have to check her own phone to tell how late it is. She can feel the sunrise creeping into the horizon of the night sky. “I'm fine,” she says, but she stumbles as she rises to her feet. 

He catches her before she can topple over on top of him. “If by fine, you mean drunk, then yeah, you're totally good.” 

She sticks out her tongue and he laughs, his fingers slipping into the crook of her elbow to keep her from tipping over again. 

He leaves her at the main door, dragging his feet as he bids goodnight. 

Max thinks back to all the awkward dates she'd had in high school—a grand total of three. Suddenly, she feels eighteen again, clumsy in words and her body as she’d tried to slip inside before her date could decide whether to kiss her. 

None of them had been Chloe. 

She thinks, equal parts horrified and amused, that she wouldn't entirely mind if Warren kissed her now. 

His head swims before her, silent, waiting. For her to turn towards her door, for her to say goodnight. For her to say anything. 

She lifts a hand to his face, tracing her finger against the furrow between his brows. She feels him tense even more at his touch. Her lips find his slowly. If she moves quicker, the slow spinning of her head would pick up pace again. She would unravel. 

His lips move with hers. 

Alcohol and loneliness, she thinks, are a dangerous combination. There’s something about the _what ifs_ that make her want to snatch the closest possibility at hand. 

_What if this is the last chance I’ll have?_

_What if this is what I’ve been missing?_

_What if I don’t have to be alone tonight?_

It takes ten steps to make it to her dorm. Five more to her bed. The mattress creaks as they tumble onto it and the sound seems to echo in her head, like a door being slammed shut. This isn’t a fantasy playing out in her head, a desperate attempt to grab onto something from her past. Her shirt is knotted behind her and digging into her back. His belt buckle is pressing into her stomach. His hands feel larger than she remembers, rougher, and she imagines her breath reeks as much as his does. 

Still, there’s something slightly intoxicating about the way his lips capture hers, the warmth of his chest as he rolls her to her side to lift her shirt free. There’s something vulnerable about the way he groans into her mouth when her hands fumble to open his belt. 

Hours later, she stumbles into the bathroom, knocking shampoo from the counter as she tries to meet the toilet. She hears the shuffle of feet behind her. When she lays her head against the coolness of the toilet seat, she feels a blanket being wrapped around her shoulders. 

She doesn’t meet his eyes when they wake up in the morning. She doesn't ask for his number or mention anything from last night. She decides she's never attending another party again.

Warren leans against the door, as if torn between leaving and staying. “You okay?” he asks. 

Every inch of her feels broken, slid out of place, and she avoids his eyes again when she nods. She forces herself to go back to sleep, staring at a string of blemishes across her thigh, small blooms of red. She wishes she could rub them away like paint. 

**\----**  

It’s a week later when she runs into him again. Her backpack is missing and she’s late to her poli-sci class. She scoops up the tower of her books and powers through regardless. 

“Mayday.” Warren careens around the books before they can topple and spill between them. “Come on, senior year of college and you haven't invested in a backpack? That's pretty dedicated stubbornness.” 

“I _have_ a backpack. It's just MIA right now,” she retorts. 

“Of course.” He pulls the top most books from the pile, tucking them under his arm. 

Max rolls her eyes and reaches to take the books back, but he dances out of reach. 

“Stubborn,” he repeats and gestures for her to keep walking. 

“You don't have to,” she stalls. She doesn’t know if this is the time to bring up the other night. If she should. She cringes every time she recalls it. Tipsy enough to laugh at anything that stood still long enough. To cling to the first familiar warmth. To throw away the number he’d left on her nightstand. 

“No big deal,” he says, shrugging. “You couldn't really leave behind your copy of _Racial Profiling in Post 9/11 United States and Content Regulation in Broadcasting_ ,” he says, eyeing the top most book. “You're definitely a journalism major.”

She smiles and walks ahead of him. She doesn't tell him how long it had taken her to decide that. To pack up her camera every semester only to unpack it again the next day. “We can't all be science nerds.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I'm currently elbow deep into _Computational Modeling of Aggregation Phenomena in Petrochemical Mixtures._ It's a pretty light read." 

Max laughs, shaking her head. 

He grins and it’s a gesture that suddenly makes him look sixteen again. 

“So…this is me,” she says when they’ve reached her classroom. 

“Hmm?” He looks up from her books, brow wrinkled in confusion before he catches on. “Oh, right.” He places the books on top of her pile carefully. “We should run into each other again. Doesn’t have to be a party.” He shrugs and there’s a light blush across his face. 

She shrugs in return, sending the books toppling towards her chest. She wants to tell him that she’s been busy, that she’ll be busy. That she will probably steer clear of parties till she graduates. 

“Maybe,” she replies. 

“Better invest in a good backpack, too. Unless your ploy is to have unsuspecting people carry your stuff around all day.” 

“You caught me,” she says with a slight smile. 

“Well, it was worth it.” 

She turns towards the door and he gives her a small salute before leaving. “Thanks,” she says to his retreating back and he turns back with a nod. 

She doesn't remember a single word of the lecture. Instead, she runs her fingers over the indentation of the letters on her book cover, the title that takes over nearly half the book. It doesn't fit—the letters, the title, the book in front of her. But she makes it fit all the same. 

**\----**  

It’s pouring rain when she spies him again. He has his backpack over his head, shielding some of the downpour, but the front of his shirt is soaked. He sends wave after wave of puddles crashing against his legs as he runs through.

He doesn’t see her when she pulls over and she nearly falls out the passenger window as she calls out to him. 

He grins though, as if she’s pulled up in a limo with blow-drying ceiling vents. “Thanks, Super Max. Sorry for the mess.” He glances down at the puddles already collecting beneath him. “You see the importance of a good backpack.” He holds up his water-logged bag in victory. 

“Yeah, those three dry strands of hair on your head are really grateful,” she retorts. 

He scoffs in mock protest. “No, but seriously, thanks. My car's in the shop and I thought I could beat the rain back to my dorm. Obviously, I’m delusional.” 

“Just a little,” she says as he points in the direction to his dorm. She can feel the years between them slide around in the car, from the phone in her console to whatever is rolling around his bag. Not the same phone. Not the same bag. Not the same car. 

He roots around in his pocket, pulling out gum wrappers and rubber bands, before going completely rigid. “Shit. Oh, shit.” 

“What’s wrong?” Max asks, but when he tears into his bag, pulling out books and notebooks, she has an idea. “Lose your keys?” 

“They must have fallen out of my pocket,” he grumbles and reaches for his phone instead.

“Can you call your roommate to let you in?” 

“No,” he groans, tossing his phone back in his bag. “He’s out of town for the weekend. He’s coming back tomorrow.” His hair is plastered to his face. His teeth are chattering loud enough to rival the groaning protest of her car’s heater. 

“Oh.” She turns towards the opposite road. “Do you wanna head back to my place? You can borrow my shower and a warm blanket or something. At least, till the rain stops, and see if you can get someone to open your door.” 

He pauses, clenching his jaw tight enough to stop the chattering. “You sure?” 

“Yeah, it’s no big deal. We could order pizza and watch movies like…well, like old times, I guess.” She glances at him to see his jaw is still clenched. He’s also crossed his arms over his chest, fingers digging into his ribs to keep from shivering. She can't tell which part of him is too cold and which is disagreeing with her. “Or not,” she adds hastily. 

He looks towards her and again she’s caught off guard by how much he’s aged. It’s as if time has hit fast forward and has chipped away at his jawline, painted a shadow of stubble against his chin. She has the strangest urge to try to rub it away. 

“Okay,” he says after a beat. “You had me at shower, really. And then when you said pizza, well, you’re doomed with my eternal gratitude.” 

She smiles and it brings back his grin, chattering teeth and all. 

The rain hasn’t let up when they park. They run towards the doors, Warren tugging her by the hand to pull her through the downpour. The wind slaps at them and they’re both red-faced and bleary-eyed by the time they make it inside. 

“Man, that storm’s not playing around,” he mutters while Max fumbles for her keys. He hesitates before following inside her room. She knows he’s having déjà vu by the far-off expression he’s sporting. 

It's different when they are sober and soaking wet, Blackwell a few years distant in their memories. 

It’s different when she can still recall the warmth of his hands crawling up her sides, his body flush against hers. 

“Lisa,” he says with a wistful smile, gesturing to the plant near her bed. 

“Actually, no,” she replies and pats the plant affectionately. “Lisa met an untimely demise my sophomore year, thanks to my roommate’s crazy ex. This is Stephanie.” 

“Ah, no. She was a good plant. Tell me there was a eulogy, at least.” He holds up his hands as if displaying a headline. “Lisa, we knew you well.” 

“I'm sure she would have appreciated your memory,” Max says with a laugh. She waves towards the adjoining door nearby. “Bathroom’s through there.” Her back stiffens when she realizes that he probably knows that. 

But he’s already gone through, the door softly clicking closed behind him. 

She busies herself with ordering the pizza and rooting through her dusty DVD collection. She knows he'd be impressed with her growing number of cult classics. 

She’s turning her laptop on when she hears the water shut off. There’s a shuffling of feet before the door cracks open and Warren peeks out with a sheepish smile. “Uh, there’s a minor setback,” he says when she looks over. “No clothes.”

“Hmm?” She stares at him, the barest sliver of skin through the crack between them. Then, when the words catch up to her, she blinks and turns away, rushing towards her dresser. There are a few of her dad's shirts tossed in with her pajamas and she imagines those would work. She also has a few pairs of boxers that she sometimes sleeps in. She quickly grabs them and shoves them towards the crack he’s still peering through. 

The crack widens so he can grab them. She sees the towel he has wrapped around himself with one white-knuckled hand. 

“You don't have to,” he rushes to say. “I mean, I can stand in front of the heater or something until my clothes are drier.” 

“No big deal,” she says in a voice slightly higher than she'd intended. 

He pauses before slipping out of the bathroom. “Not a word,” he warns. 

She tries not to stare at how tight the boxers are on him. She throws one of her extra blankets towards him instead, burying her giggles in her own blanket. She's cocooned into it to keep her humility intact. 

“Laughing counts as words,” he complains. He props the blanket into his lap, glaring at her as if it's her fault they're in this position. But the corners of his mouth twitch when she can't contain her giggles anymore and the effect is lost. 

“I'm sorry,” she says, even as she's laughing, even as he tosses one of her pillows towards her, bouncing it off her head. 

“What are we watching?” he asks, shuffling through the DVDs. “Oh, nice, _Night of the Living Dead._ Why, Max Caulfield, your collection has grown leaps and bounds since I've last seen you. Dare I say, I've had a lasting influence?” 

“You wish,” she replies and snatches the DVD out of his hands to put it into her laptop. She sets it on the table in front of them. 

The movie starts and Max tries to pretend she’s four years younger. It makes it easier to ignore the way the muscles in his leg bunch when he bends it. It makes it easier to remember why they’d been friends. It makes it easier to forget anything else. 

His clothes dry on the heater behind them and he burrows himself into the blanket when the pizza arrives. 

“This is so weird,” he admits, face stuffed with pizza. “I feel like I'm back in high school and we're going to get busted for me sneaking into your dorm.” 

“Well, who can tell your intentions when you're wearing boxers like that?” She twirls some of the loose cheese around her finger. 

He glances down at his blanket-covered lap, wincing. “It can't possibly be that bad,” he argues. 

“It's terrifying,” she insists. “I'm pretty sure it'll be one of the stories I tell when people ask about the horrors of college life.”

“It isn’t anything you haven’t seen anyway.” He shrugs, looking up with a grin. 

She chokes on her pizza, bits of pepperoni flying into her open hands. There’s a beat of silence as she tries to push the image of his body from her mind. “I'm _eating,_ ” she scolds. Her eyes water as she tries to pull air back into her lungs instead of food. 

“Oh, well, excuse me. I thought you were watering plants over there.” He laughs and folds his arms behind his head as he leans back against the wall. 

She clears her throat, turning her attention pointedly towards the screen and not his lap. 

He still shoots her a grin every time she looks his way but soon they're lost in the movie. Warren adds residual zombie effects when the room gets too quiet. But soon, even that stops, and she isn't sure at what point he'd fallen asleep. The pizza box lays empty on the floor beside them. Warren is half sprawled beneath his blanket, one bare leg sticking out. 

She nudges his leg with her toe. “Hey, did you want to head back before it gets dark? See if you can get in your dorm?” she asks when he cracks one eye open. 

“What time is it?” He checks his phone and tosses it back down with a groan. “The office closes in like ten minutes and I feel like one of Romero's zombies right now.” 

“Do you...want to crash here?”

His other eye opens as he senses her hesitancy. He pulls himself into a sitting position. “Is that okay?” 

“I can try to rush you over there before it closes,” she offers. 

He winces when he grabs his shirt from the heater, the fabric still cold and damp. 

“But you can stay if you want,” she adds. “I've got plenty of blankets. I can crash on the floor.” 

He pauses as he stands up, pulling the blanket behind him. He looks over at the bed and it’s a few moments before he finally responds. “No, don't do that. I can take the floor or—“ 

The door opens and Laura steps in, pausing only when she nearly crashes into Warren. “Oh,” she says and backs up. “Didn't know you had company.” She smirks when she takes in the boxers he'd neglected to cover. “Don't mind me. I'll just get my wallet and then I'm out of your hair.” She winks at Max as she grabs her wallet from her desk. 

Max drops her head into her palms, groaning. “No. We got caught in the rain. We’re just watching movies,” she tries to explain. 

Laura is already leaning against the open door. "Sure you were,” she replies. “Pants free and everything.” She waves, closing the door behind her. 

“Oh, my god, I'm sorry,” Max says, hands over her mouth, another giggle rising in her throat. 

“The horror lives on,” he says with a grimace. 

“Well, you can take Laura's bed then. I don't think she'll mind.” 

He glances dubiously towards the other bed. “Is she coming back?” 

“Probably not. She'll probably stay out until like ten in the morning, bothering me with texts to see if the coast is clear. Just in case I didn't possibly get laid yet. Or enough. Or... _god._ ” She drops her head into her hands again, laughing. 

He collapses back onto the floor, the blanket bundled beneath him like a pillow. The smile dies slowly from his face. “Is this too weird? Me being here?” 

Max pauses as she climbs onto her bed, lifting the laptop up beside her. She thinks of the last time he'd been in her dorm at Blackwell, picking up a book she'd borrowed, his face a mask as he mumbled goodbye. After she’d admitted she'd wanted to stay friends. It was like a door had closed between them. He’d barely said more than a handful of words to her since then. 

She looks down at him now, at his spectacular bed head and her dad's wrinkled shirt. She doesn't even recognize him anymore. 

He looks up at her expectantly. 

“You're fine,” she says and forces a shrug. 

He sits on the bed next to her, frowning. “Because it feels weird for me. Like I keep thinking back to...Blackwell.” 

She’s fairly certain that isn’t what he was alluding to. She feels his gaze travel to her thigh, where the marks he’d left are long gone. 

“Too nostalgic?” she asks with a smile. 

“Too something,” he replies. He gestures towards her laptop. “We finishing the movie?”

“Sure.” She curls up beside him and rewinds to the last part she remembers.

This time they’re barely three quarters through before they both pass out. She wakes to Warren's side pressed against her face, the laptop having fallen to the floor at some point. His hand rests against her back, his head buried against her pillow. She thinks of slipping away, into Laura's bed, but his hand tightens at her shirt as she stirs. She reaches to pull it free, but then it tightens around her hand instead. 

He mumbles something in his sleep. 

She weighs the options of just going back to sleep versus giving him his space. She thinks the latter would be the least embarrassing outcome in the morning. 

“Warren,” she whispers, trying to free his hand again. 

His eyes pop open, glancing up at her in semi-conscious confusion. “Oh, sorry,” he mumbles. He rolls over, now effectively blocking her in her own bed. 

She tries shoving his legs aside but he only gives a loud snort and kicks lightly at her. She sucks in a breath and settles for trying to climb over him instead. Unfortunately, he rolls back over the moment her right leg has crossed over. She collapses right onto his hips. 

His eyes shoot open again. His hands reach out and grab hold of her sides. 

She feels as if her own eyes are going to fall out of her head in mortification. 

“What are you doing?” he asks, his voice rough from sleep. 

She laughs because it’s all she can manage and once again tries to pry his hands from her. This time, they fall away as if she's burned him. “Trying to get to the other bed,” she replies. 

He sits up, sending her tumbling backwards onto the bed. “That...was your best tactic?” He rubs his eyes, looking confused as he glances around his surroundings. 

“You're not exactly the easiest person to wake up,” she admits. 

He smiles then, rolling over to the side closest to the wall. “Just stay.” His eyes have already fallen closed again. 

She settles next to him, as close to the edge as she can manage and stares up at the ceiling. She doesn't know how long it takes her to fall back asleep, but she feels she's memorized the pattern of the ceiling before then.

**\----**

Max opens her door before he's even had time to knock, a paper bag in one hand while his other is poised before her door. 

Laura leers over from her desk, practically cackling as she recognizes him. “Should I excuse myself again?” 

“No,” Max says, quickly grabbing her bag and closing the door behind her. She can still hear Laura laughing on the other side. 

“Ah, good to see your backpack’s returned,” Warren says, pointing to her bag. “I brought you lunch.” He holds up the paper bag hesitantly. “You know, to thank you for last week.” 

Max smiles and takes the bag. “You don't owe me anything, Warren. I was just helping out a friend in need.” 

He pauses, brow crinkled in confusion before shaking his head. “It's good to know you'll always offer your underwear to those in need,” he says with a laugh. 

She groans, which makes him laugh again. 

He leads them over to a bench while Max pulls sandwiches from the bag, handing one to him. They eat in silence. 

“It's different,” Warren finally says around a bite of his sandwich. “I thought it would be the same.” 

She thinks of asking him to clarify but he looks pointedly at her. 

“It's been years,” she replies, shrugging. “We're different people.” 

“Are we?” He raises an eyebrow. 

In that simple expression, she can once again see the sixteen-year-old he'd left behind ages ago. She wonders where she'd left herself, if he looks at her and sees the same thing. 

“I don't think people change that much,” he continues. “We just get pulled in different directions and branch from there. We're still the same at the core of it all.” 

She balls up the wrapper to her sandwich and tosses it into the bag. “Do you think we’re in different directions?” 

His smile falters. “It feels like that lately.” 

She sighs and balls up the wrapper to her sandwich. “The night of the party…I’ve never done that before.” 

“Which part?” He frowns and holds out the bag for her to toss the wrapper inside. 

“All of it,” she says, looking away. 

“I kind of figured that out,” he replies. “But I don’t regret it, though.” He balls up his own wrapper, rolling it between his fingers as he thinks. “Do you?” 

“Why did you think it’d be the same?” she asks instead. 

He bites his lip, staring ahead for a few moments before responding. “The same reason you try to outrun a storm, even though you know you're going to get soaked.”

“Insanity?” Max suggests. 

He laughs. “Something like that.” His grin falters again and he looks down, studying the pattern of the wooden bench beneath them. “Is that why it’s bothering you? You wanted it to be different?” 

“I think in a different situation, it wouldn’t have happened.” 

“In a different situation,” he says, “I would have gone slower.” His cheeks flush when her eyes grow wide. “I mean, with pursuing you,” he rushes to add. “I’d rather have us get used to each other again.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what you mean,” she mutters and shakes her head with a small laugh. 

“What exactly do _you_ mean?” he asks in a low voice, scooting away when she reaches over to swat him. She shakes her head again. 

“What are my chances of running into you again?”

“You mean purposely?” she asks, lips quirking upwards into a smile. 

“Yeah, my friend Craig’s throwing a party for New Year’s Eve. You should come.” He smiles apologetically. “No drunken hookups required.” 

She takes the balled-up wrapper from his hands, tossing it into the bag between them. “I don't know. I think I’ve sworn off parties for a while.” 

“I promise it’ll be worth it,” he says. “Craig is a total weirdo and never does anything half way.” He gestures to the phone in her pocket and she hands it over. He types in his number. The number he’d left on her nightstand that she’d thrown away. “Call me?” He rises to his feet, his smile still at the corners of his mouth. 

She nods, slipping her phone back into her pocket. 

He hesitates again before leaving. “You said we’re different people,” he says. “I don’t think it’s about becoming a different person. It just means you've grown older.” 

\---- 

She doesn't know what's worse, the guy banging a gong draped over a table or the amount of alcohol it had taken to achieve it. She's not so sure she wants to know where he'd found a gong in the first place. 

“Hey,” Warren yells over the noise, “you said you weren't coming.” 

Max covers her ears, stepping backwards another foot. She points towards Laura somewhere in the crowd behind her and shrugs. “She wouldn't let me stay home and study.” 

“Well, yeah, it's New Year's Eve.” He smiles at her from behind his drink. “Kinda sad to stay in and study.” 

“And here I thought you'd support me in my efforts to keep my GPA up. You've betrayed me and all nerdkind.” 

She notes how easy it is to banter with him, how the words have always seemed to fall free between them. It’s surprisingly easy to let go if she doesn’t stop to think about it. Even with Laura, who’s been her roommate for two years now, there’s still a foot of space between them. Seconds that pass between them when one thinks the other has stepped too far. Friends under the guise that everything’s all right between them. Anything deeper has the potential to be unpredictable. 

Gone. 

He rolls his eyes and takes her arm, leading her away from the gong. A group of guys attempt to bounce plastic bottles off the surface. “Moderation,” he says. “You know all work and no play...” 

“You did all your assignments before the party, didn't you?” she interrupts. 

He grins. “You know me too well.” 

“You're insane.” She thinks of the pile of textbooks waiting for her. The thought of tackling it all at once makes her want to breathe into a paper bag. “I’m not drinking,” she adds. “I just wanted to drop by.” 

“Ten minutes,” someone yells and there's a cheer that ripples through the crowd. 

“Too late to leave now,” he points out. 

She watches the chaos surrounding the gong. “The cops are going to show up before we even get to midnight.” 

“Nah, we might make it a little bit past,” he muses as he leans against the wall. “It'd be bad luck to leave now.”

Someone cranks up the TV, blaring whatever music is playing at Times Square. A few couples sway to the noise. 

“Want to dance?” Warren jokes. Someone shouts, “Five minutes,” behind them and he jumps. His drink splashes from his cup and quickly seeps into his shirt. “Shit,” he mumbles. He looks around helplessly for napkins. 

“I think you're out of luck,” Max says and Warren wrinkles his nose while pulling off his t-shirt. She catches a line of skin beneath the fabric. There are places her sober mind’s not familiar with, patches of time padded to skin and muscle. Then, it’s buried beneath his undershirt as it’s pulled down. Younger again. 

She pulls at the hem of her own shirt and looks away. 

He tosses the other shirt aside and holds out a hand, smirking. “Come on. You can't look like an idiot when everyone else is acting like one.” 

She sighs, taking hold of his hand, and he immediately pulls her towards him, humming along to the song. 

His hands rest low against her waist and they sway languidly, completely out of sync to the fast-paced beat. 

“One minute!” 

Warren's thumbs circle against the hem of her shirt as he looks up towards the TV, as if he's not even aware he's doing it.

Max feels the seconds tick past far too quickly, faster than the surrounding crowd can count them down, faster than it takes the song to end. And when the countdown hits zero, she's not sure what she expects. She pulls away the second he leans down, placing one chaste kiss upon her. It’s over before she can fully step back.

She wants to laugh, the beginning of some witty joke dying in her throat. But she only stares up, lips parted, heart thrumming to catch up. She is eighteen, twenty-two, an imbalance of years fighting for dominance. She thinks of reaching for his face again, to catch her thumb over the bare beginning of a beard.

She finds her eyes tracing lines into his body and pairing them up with the boy she'd known then. His hands feel both familiar and unfamiliar as they fall from her waist. 

She traces lines onto her own body. She is different now than she was a few weeks ago, and already she can't pair the two together.  
  
“Happy new year, Max,” he murmurs. He’s the one who steps away, reaching for his discarded shirt and watching as the gong goes crazy. She can feel the vibration against her teeth. The whole house feels as if it will tumble down.

\---- 

Every time she enters the campus dark room, she feels as if all the air has been sucked out of the room. It’s gotten better over the years. And now, her last year, there’s only a tiny bite of panic at the back of her brain. She imagines turning it off every time she leaves the room, like the door she closes behind her when she leaves. 

Warren waits on the other side of the door, frowning at some article he's reading on his phone. “All done?” he asks. He gestures to the photos in the envelope she's carrying and she nods, shakily. 

She remembers the words he'd said a month ago, about growing and changing and branching out. If that's true, she's stretched herself so thin, she should be able to cover an entire continent. 

“Tell me you have some amazing weekend plan. One that doesn't include homework or glaring at a laptop screen,” she says, slipping the envelope in her backpack. That's one weekend project done, at least. 

“So, no movies?” he asks, and now he's frowning at her. “You okay?” 

“Think bigger,” she says, ignoring his question. She knows she probably looks a little pale and she shakes it aside. 

“Hit the arcade?” he suggests. “We can go to the one with the open bar.” 

“Sounds perfect,” she agrees. “I'll meet you there?”

He pauses on the way to his car, that's been back from the shop twice since the first time, keys dangling from his hand. “Or you could just ride with me?” 

“Oh,” she says, because they'd always met at a rendezvous point when texting plans to one another. It’s how they'd been doing it for the past couple of weeks. She stares at the car in front of them and then back toward him. His eyebrow’s raised because he's here now and they might as well drive together. 

“Okay.” 

He opens the door wordlessly. 

The arcade is already jammed full of college students when they arrive. They weave their way through the crowd, where they manage to grab the air hockey table. It had been years since she'd played, but her reflexes had always been quicker than Warren's. He knocks the puck repeatedly off the table and Max hits it into the goal before he's barely moved. It's as if the second he pushes the puck forward, she’s already shot it into the goal. 

“Okay, that was impressive.” His smile fades though as he tries to keep up, concentration knotted between his brows. He rolls his eyes when Max scores again and yet another time, blocking his puck with a victorious yell before he can even get it past her side. 

“This is ridiculous,” he says. He practically leaps onto the table to keep her from scoring again. “I mean, I blink and you score again. I'm in way over my head here.” 

She notices the way his shirt rises as he reaches past the table, the way he tosses his hair from his eyes as if that will somehow make it easier. 

The puck clatters loudly into the goal beside her. 

“Okay, you let me win that one,” he protests. 

She blinks, forcing a smile onto her face. “Try harder then,” she urges and immediately compensates by knocking it back into the other goal. 

He throws up his hands in disbelief but laughs, leaning against the table. “I'm like roadkill over here. You've killed me and now you’re repeatedly rolling over my corpse.” 

“Just trying to keep you on your toes,” she teases. 

“Too bad corpses can't stand on their toes.” 

“You're not trying hard enough.” 

Max manages to win two games from him before he gives up for the bar. He notices her hesitating and gives a sheepish smile. “You don’t have to drink.” 

“I think I’m done with alcohol for a while,” she says softly and orders a Coke for herself. 

His smile quickly falls. “Yeah, I could understand that.” He clears his throat. “You're gonna lose an arm, you get any more competitive than that.” 

Max smiles wistfully. “You mean, you're gonna lose an arm,” she retorts. “You're just as bad.” 

“Ouch,” he mutters, shaking his head. “I think I remember why I stopped playing with you.” 

“Afraid to lose?" 

“No,” he says slowly. “Afraid to win, maybe.” 

She pulls her wallet out the same moment he lays down money for her drink. She starts to protest but he just shrugs, sliding the drink towards her. “You can get the next one if you want.” 

“Thanks,” she says as he clinks his glass against hers. 

“Let’s find the zombie game,” he says when he’s downed the last of his drink. “I swear they modeled it after Romero’s. But it’s 3D and everything.” He’s up and into the crowd before she can set her drink down. 

“Remind me to hide my DVD stash the next time you're over,” she hollers over the noise around them. The place has become so crowded, Max can't even turn around without losing him. She peers around the corner of some race car driving game before he's disappeared. “Warren?” 

She shrieks when his hand grabs hers from behind and tugs her away from a herd of boys running past them. 

“You were about to get swallowed by the mob,” he warns, ducking around a couple arguing. 

Her shriek turns to laughter when she nearly crashes into him. She uses her free hand to steady herself. 

The couple’s arguing grows louder and one of them throws a bag behind them. 

“Quick, dodge left,” Warren says. Max stumbles into him to avoid hitting the wall, this time her free hand practically smashed between them. 

“It's chaos here,” he says, his lips against her ear. “Should we head back?” 

She can smell the detergent on his clothes, like rain beneath the note of generic soap. She pulls her hand back quickly. 

“What about your zombies?” she asks. 

“Next time,” he promises. “Maneuvering out of here is almost as good anyway.”

The air outside the open door feels too welcome against her face. “Are you good to drive?” She ducks under his arm as he opens the car door for her and bats his hand away as he tries to close it. 

“I had one drink,” he protests. “There was more alcoholic content in the air around us.” 

“Can you walk a straight line?” she prompts and holds her finger in front of his eyes to follow. 

He grabs her hand and moves it aside gently. “I'm not sixteen anymore.” 

“It's kind of hard to forget,” she says, running her thumb over his chin, “with whatever is trying to grow there.” 

This time he smacks her hand lightly aside, but his cheeks are flushed and he fumbles for the keys in his pocket. 

Max's phone chirps from her own pocket and she pulls it out, groaning when she catches the text on her screen. “I forgot Laura had a date tonight.” She looks up, slightly panicked. “She's kicking me out for the night.” 

Warren snorts but when Max doesn't join in, he looks over at her instead. “Well, where did you go last time?” 

“The sofa in the lobby. Except last time, some creepy dude was standing behind me watching me sleep.” She shudders just thinking of waking up to him staring down at her. It had taken all her wits not to throw the lamp next to her at him. She'd spent the rest of the night huddled against her dorm room door. 

“Well, we can't have that,” Warren replies with a frown. “Do you want to crash at my place?” 

“No,” she says, sighing. “I don't know.” 

“My roommate's usually never there and we have a couch.” He pulls up to his dorm, eyebrows raised as he waits for her answer. “It doesn’t have to be like the first time.”

“You sure it's okay?” She hesitates as she reaches for her bag, wrapping the strap around her wrist. It's different than last time, when he was shivering and locked out of his dorm. It’s different when they’re sober and there’s a console between them. When she’s not leaning forward for something to catch her. When she’s miles from where she was at eighteen. When she's alert enough to notice how his lip twitches before uttering a witty comeback. 

The way it twitches now. “I promise I won't make you wear my boxers,” he says, crossing an “x” above his heart. 

Max groans into her hands to hide her blush. “That's not really reassuring.” 

“What? You wanted to wear them?” He grins. 

“Absolutely not,” she promises as he leads her to his dorm. 

They both try to walk in at the same moment, her shoulders against his side, her arm tangling with his. He steps back, to let her walk through, but she steps backwards as well. He grabs hold of her waist to keep her from tripping over him. 

She feels her heart stop again, an exclamation point to the anxiety coursing through her. It has been ages since she's felt someone's hands on her, stabling or otherwise. Some nights she'd spent curled into a ball in her sheets, wishing away her past like some people attempt to forget dreams. 

But sunlight still breaks through the window in the morning—bright, angry, and omniscient. 

She leaves those nights behind. 

“It usually works better when it's one person walking at a time.” 

She laughs. It feels like fire in her throat. She settles on his couch, smiling when he flops down beside her, laptop in hand. 

It's _The Thing_ they watch this time, but Max finds her mind wandering to everything but the movie playing on his small TV. She watches the dusk swallow the sunset out his window, the dust speckled against his windowpane like stars. She eyes the piles of textbooks on his desk, sectioned off by subject, like some small city landscape. She watches the muscles in his hand flex as he reaches for the popcorn he'd set between them, the way he tosses it into his mouth. Easy. Relaxed. Comfortable. 

When her leg starts to fall asleep, she leans into him, shaking feeling back into it. 

He drapes his arm over her to give her more room and she smiles slightly when she notices he doesn’t move it away. 

She falls into his comfort, even when her other leg starts to cramp as well. 

When she doesn't flinch at the scream of someone being torn apart, he elbows her. “Something on your mind? You've been wandering to outer space a lot tonight.” 

She elbows him back, forgetting about the popcorn, and rushing to catch it before it spills all over the floor. He moves to catch it as well, his hands balancing hers. She feels her face flush and his gaze measuring the color. 

He exhales slowly. His hands are still against hers and he presses them gently against the bowl. “Must be serious, then,” he replies. 

“No,” she answers. “I just…I miss this.” Even if it isn’t the same, if there are now layers surrounding them. 

“Yeah?” he says, and she feels her heart pause as he squeezes her hands again. The tip of a smile teasing at his lips. 

She leans into him before realizing what she’s done. Her lips brush against his and he stills. She can feel the muscles tighten around his jaw. The popcorn bowl topples from their grasp, raining kernels on the floor below. 

“It’s okay,” she says. Her hand rests against his knee, trying to will strength to push her forward. Her other hand flutters near her hair, rearranging strands, tucking some behind her ear. 

Warren watches her, his eyes dropping to her hand against his knee, her other hand now tugging at the ends of her hair. His gaze carefully trails back towards her lips and when she still hasn’t pulled away, he closes the distance again. His lips barely press against hers but she kisses him back willingly. His hand reaches towards the hand in her hair and tugs it away, intertwining her fingers with his. 

She feels the tension between them uncoil, the past month unraveling in the way her tongue brushes past his, the way he sighs against her mouth.

She loosens her hands and lets them climb up his arms and rest against his shoulders, tugging him closer. His hands cradle her sides as she takes in the reality of what's happening. She expects him to pull away. She expects him to apologize, to laugh, but he holds on until she lets go, bumping against the other side of the sofa. 

She stares up at him, lips parted, heart thrumming to catch up. She reaches again for his face, her thumb catching over the stubble on his chin. 

“Wait.” He closes his eyes against her touch. When he opens them, there are a thousand words flickering through. She can see him pondering all of them, which is the right course, where is the least heartache. “Are you sure?” She watches the bob of his throat as he swallows. “About all this?” 

She has never been good at sorting her options. Sometimes she feels that fate is a spinning wheel and wherever she lands her finger is where she'll end up. 

“Max?” he prods and his fingers tap against her sides. “What do you want this to be?” 

Her hands pull away from his shoulders and she feels the muscles tense underneath. She knows that this is not just _something,_ that even if they make it seem that way, they won't be able to go back to this. “I want to know you more,” she whispers. “To know this more. To keep finding more.” 

“Okay,” he says, his breath against her throat, “okay.” 

His lips find hers again. The arm of the sofa has pushed up the back of her shirt and his hands crawl up to meet the bare space. She knows he doesn't move until she does, her heels digging into the cushion. She knows the feel of his hair is soft compared to the stubble against her cheek, her jaw. 

It's a strange whirlwind she finds herself entwined in. Past and present, a string of differentials. Again, she’s caught off guard by how his hands feel both familiar and unfamiliar as they skim across her back, her chest. How her own body seems to shift from something dormant. She wraps her legs around him to pull him closer. 

When the hours stretch long and silent between them, the sofa long abandoned for the space of the bed, she lays her back against his chest. 

“You okay?” he asks, placing a kiss between her shoulder blades. 

She rolls back into the kiss and nods lazily. 

“I’m really glad I found you again,” he murmurs against her skin. 

She rolls over to face him, her cheeks flushed as she takes in his smile. “No cheesy lines,” she warns. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he whispers to her jaw, dropping kisses towards the hollow of her throat. 

“Me, too,” she murmurs and he angles his mouth back towards hers, taking her confession with a sigh as he kisses her. 

When she’s hunting for her clothes in the morning, she notices a pair of boxers hanging from his open dresser. She smirks as she snatches them. She passes him on the way to the bathroom, his eyes widening as he takes in her outfit. Then, she finds herself pushed against the bed, his hands tugging at the waistband, his mouth against her throat. It doesn't feel like they've always belonged there. It doesn't feel new, either. It is entirely different, she thinks, than what she’d expected three weeks ago, three years ago. She wonders if he thinks the same, on which difference he focuses on—now or then. 

But then his hands grasp the back of her thighs as he lifts her up onto the bed. There are no regrets staring back at her, nothing but her heart running forward at lightning speed.


End file.
